I feel the of the car before I open my eyes. The air is blue-black, brown-black, black-black. of gas, oil, animals. I'm in the trunk.
My wrists and tied. Tape over my it almost covers my but I can barely. I must been here for hours, everything's stiff and my head like drumming on china.
The car stops. He turns off the -- but there are no traffic sounds. No sounds. No wind. What place has no wind? I turn my head the sounds like people watch radios something terrible happens.
My are sweating. Where am I? The squeaks as he lifts it up and the sun blinds me. He almost like a faceless Jesus surrounded by light. He pulls me out of the trunk and bangs my head the door. I try to cry out, but it comes a hum.
He drags me, half-standing, along a dirt road a house. I can't see any other and it looks like a farm. The screen door bangs behind me and I feel a deep, deep inside. All the rules changed here.
I'm dragged down a hall like a bag and I look for a phone, doors. Nothing but bare and brown boxes in small rooms. He pulls me into the and I almost crack my as he pushes me onto the floor. his head to the side and gazes at me as if I was a pet walks out.
I'm lying there for a long time, trying to get the off of me. My eyes are tearing. I make a sound. I can't get up and I keep rolling side to side, trying not to make noise.
got to get him to talk to me. If I can get this off my face I can talk to him. tell him my name. Have you other women in here? I'm thinking you've got of them nailed down, hung on walls, from ceiling fans swinging in summer wind.
Why did you me? If I had stayed to at the library I would have there twenty minutes longer maybe I'd been OK. Would have into the house, books piled up in my arms like a baby, and explanations why I was sorry. So sorry I'm everyone.
Would you have for me anyway? Would you have picked woman? Would I have read her in the paper and said oh my god, I was that night... and all my friends in a panic. them then how much I loved them as if I'd never the chance again.
I wonder what is doing now. Putting up signs. Showing my picture on the evening news. old friends. Maybe I'm not considered missing yet.
The family will apart and my parents will go crazy. Slowly. My brother will be so at the funeral and insist the casket be closed. (I even told anyone what kind of funeral I wanted when I died.)
Maybe years now they'll find my skeleton on the floor here and they'll to use dental records to identify me. My family will say "At least we now. We hoped she was alive somewhere. We just hope in peace."
When I sleep my are crazy -- I'm flying over fields. I don't think I sleep for more twenty minutes and when I wake up, it feels like I'm a heavy blanket. I'm still here.
As I wake up I a dog barking in the distance and I think I'm in my parents' house in Carolina. I open my eyes, there's a shotgun pressed between them. I'll get married. never have kids. I'll go to Europe. I'll never learn to piano. never write a book.
The last thing I hear is a